I needed a way to transport a new freezer home from Costco, and decided to push it the 2 miles home on a dolly. Fortunately, Harbor Freight had a 1000 pound rated piano dolly for $17, plenty strong enough to hold the 100 pound freezer. I removed the slippery rug material, and replaced it with rubber from an old truck tire innertube, glued down with wood cement.

I was nervous about a wheel breaking and being stuck 1/2 way home with the freezer, but all went well. I wore my running togs, and a Costco guy helped me to move the freezer to my dolly, after having me sign a waiver to not sue them if the freezer fell off the dolly on the freeway. There was not much chance of that happening.

The stride rate of top runners is similar to the rate of average runners, usually 170 to 200 spm when racing from 5k through half marathon. Most all of the difference is in the length of the stride, a major difference in the ground that is traveled by the runner with each stride.

Five time World Cross Country Champion and Olympic 5000m Champion John Ngugi had a nice long stride, and a relatively low stride rate for his speed, as can be seen in his amazing victory in the 1992 World XC Championships in Boston (unavailable), over a rough 7.5 mile course in the snow. Ngugi was dominant in cross country, the first ever five time World Champion. Ngugi moved up during part 2 of 5 of this exciting race, recommended to see from the start.

I’ve been running with my Korg ma30 metronome this past week and it’s great. The metronome helps me to run at a very even stride rate, pace and effort. I carry the metronome in my hand while I’m running. It is very light and easy to carry. I started at 144 spm (48 beeps) on Sep06.

This morning I ran 4x a quarter mile at free rate to see what my cadence would be, by split timing several sets of 60 strides (3 steps x 20). My average stride rate was 160.5, with an average stride length 25 percent longer than it was at 150.

How much electricity is used by a fridge or tv? Refrigerators have high consumption, as they keep going on and off, on and off all day and all night. Heating and cooling has by far the highest energy use in a typical house. All that is needed to determine the energy use is a timer with a second hand, a pen, paper, and basic calculations.

I mistakenly got soybeans / edamame at Trader Joe’s marked “natural product”, but they messed up my digestion. I wondered why, and found the term “natural” is often used on dangerous genetically engineered food products, from crops that have been destroying the farms of many populations all over the planet.
Organic food would have wording such as “produced from organic non-GMO soybeans” or similar, as shown at the Food Freedom blog on WordPress, Greenpeace, and the Organic Consumers Association. The email response from Trader Joe’s states they “ensure” all their vendors follow “FDA, USDA” guidelines, which promote the use of dangerous genetically engineered foods.

My running comeback has been coming along well. After a hard time with a very sore knee from crowned roads in January, a month off to heal, then back walking, I managed five weeks in a row over forty miles per week. Then I had a fabulous session, clipping along repeats, that made me feel I’d be racing again soon. My goal has been to complete a half marathon in the fall. Alas, my left foot was very sore at the end of the session, caused by shoes with a rigid flange that pressed in my achilles with each step.

Now I’m building back up again, running three miles each morning and ready to do more.

The photo is Sammy Wanjiru winning the 2008 Beijing Olympic Marathon in a record 2:06:32.